Blast aka Bill Gray

Well Sunday has come and gone. What started out as a bit of a challenge a couple of weeks back has been achieved, but not without more than a little blood, sweat and dare I say it, tears!

I have been going for a mountain bike ride for a couple of months now. Every Tuesday, Thursday and once in the weekend, Eric (the machine) and I have been doing a 15km stint around here and on the weekends bump that up to 21km.

Now one of the young blokes that works for me (Neris, "I know I can beat you old b**tards") has been baiting me all this time to go for this 45km ride from the top of Brown Mountain down to a few Km north of here. We have been playing him along a little but soon the crunch time came and so, this morning we were dropped off up the top.

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It was pretty cool. The top of Brown Mountain is about 1000M up from sea level but the sun was out and it was sure to warm up. Off we set. The first hour was pretty uneventful. Neris was fair belting along and as it was a gentle slope, we didn't have too much difficulty following along at his speed. Afterall we had stamina he didn't know about. We reached Cattleman's Track and stopped for a snack. Everyone was pretty buoyant and none of us had been tested... yet.

Cattleman's Track is just that... a track and within 200m we had reached our first obstacle. A swamp! Neris rode through the river and we followed. Then things started to get a little harder. The track had been systematically destroyed to stop any sort of vehicle from traveling along it. We were right into rocks and boulders, uprooted trees and various other impediments. Our forward progress was much slower but we were progressing all the same.

After about 5km we busted out onto the "new" Cattleman's Track and our spirits were lifted. Neris was no longer looking so keen to show us up but we belted along the next 5km and the gentle slope got seriously steeper and we were hitting new highs in the speed stakes.

Neris was in front, I was next and Eric "the machine" was following up making sure nothing was left behind. At times, I was in the air, flicked up there by the speed and the launching pads strategically placed down the track. It was at one of these pads that I experienced uncontrolled flight, in other words, my back wheel was flicked higher that my front and the landing was not pretty but at least I stayed upright. I had barely gained control when I heard a crunch or was it a shout and I turned around to see Eric bounce off the gravel.

A hasty call forward stopped Neris and we retraced our steps at a healthy speed to where Eric was still splattered. His grazes were impressive and there were a few pieces of bark missing from his body. I patched him up while Neris sorted out his bike.

Now theres patching up and theres patching up. The grazes would be fine but the deep gash in his leg may need some further work but I bandaged it up and he put on a brave face and struggled to his feet.

His bike was also a mess. The front wheel had a 45 degree bend in it and despite all sorts of jumping on it, it was going to stay considerably twisted. We managed to get it to the point where it would travel around between the front forks and then it was on to sorting out the statistics of the crash.

From where he left the ground to where he landed (on his shoulder and head, I might add) was approx 8 meters and then there was a further sliding of some 8.5 meters to the stopping point. Not bad. I was impressed.

We did some more sums and figured we were exactly at the half way point of our trip. As the majority of the next half was down hill we were always going to continue. Eric gingerly hopped back on his bike... no front brake and a very wobbly wheel. Come to think of it, Eric was pretty wobbly himself.

I decided to give him the good news, "You can either hop back on your bike and ride out or stay here an sulk for a few hours"
He did a great job of "nah, I'm ok, it's just a scratch"

Our progress might have been slowed but at least we we moving again. The turn off onto The Mogila Fire Trail arrived and this was the road for home... or so we thought.

By the time we were down the bottom, there was only one road to take and it seemed to be leading us further away from our destination. On we rode. We hit the sealed road and the signpost was acceptable but we realised we were going to be about 10km off from where we wanted to be. Bemboka is the township the road lead us too and after a short rest we headed down the main road to where we knew the car was. Yep! we made it. 5.5 hours after we left. 56km of biking.